PARTIAL ECLIPSE(Neuplne Zatmeni)

Year: 1982Country:CzechoslovakiaRun Time:
87 minutes

Jaromil Jires graduated from the Prague Film School in 1960 and directed short documentaries before his first feature, "The Cry," in 1963. Jires received international recognition for "The Joke," released during the peak of the Czech New Wave in 1968. His reputation grew abroad with "Her Week of Wonders" (1969), "My Love to the Swallows" (1971), "Opera in the Vineyard" (1981) and PARTIAL ECLIPSE in 1982. Lucie Patikova was the acting discovery of the 1984 San Francisco Film Festival for her forceful performance as Marta in PARTIAL ECLIPSE. Marta is 14 years old, living in Prague with her mother (Jana Brezinova) and sister, Susanne (Gabriela Bestakova). Despite no improvement following an operation, Marta believes that her loss of sight is a temporary condition, a belief encouraged by her mother. This deception leaves the young girl emotionally unprepared to accept the training of her teachers at a school for the blind, where she is sent to cope with living in an ever-darkening world. Marta refuses to learn, bitterly dwelling on a secret she has kept from her mother - that her blindness resulted from a concussion she received in a fall caused by her sister. A caring psychologist helps to turn Marta's hopeless, suicidal feelings to a new sense of her self-worth and an acceptance of reality.

". . .A compelling, beautifully acted drama. . .director Jaromil Jires goes well beyond anything done in this country (in "A Patch of Blue," etc.) to suggest the disorienting, at times halluncinatory world of the blind." -California Mercury